If the Witness Lied (22 page)

Nonny and Poppy walk in.

They take no more notice of Cheryl Rand than of the nearest maple tree. Smithy hurtles toward them, elbowing past Madison and Jack. When Nonny holds out her arms, Smithy dives into her embrace. “Oh, Nonny, you came! I wasn’t even nice. I didn’t even talk to you when you visited my school last summer. Here you are anyway.”

Cheryl comes to an uncertain stop in the doorway. She wavers, staring at the dark yard, sure that Angus must be out there somewhere.

“Of course we’re here, darling. Your school phoned this morning. Your headmistress was concerned, Smithy. And her phone call with Cheryl was disturbing. There’s something radically wrong, Dr. Dresser told us. Get on a plane. So we did.”

Jack comes to a halt on the very step where he stood this morning, listening to the plans of Angus and Cheryl. Everything
violent dissipates. That is his grandfather smiling up at him. That is his grandmother holding Smithy.

Nonny wipes away Smithy’s tears. “Is it that bad?”

“Not now that you’re here. How did you get here so fast?”

“Darling, this isn’t the eighteenth century. We got a three-hour direct flight. We were just boarding when we got a second call. It was from your roommate, Kate. Get on a plane, she said, there’s something wrong. Smithy’s afraid for Tris.”

Jack reaches the last step. He is taller than his grandfather. But oh, the wonder of it—his grandfather is a grown-up. He will be in charge.
He
will handle Cheryl.

“I didn’t even answer Poppy’s e-mails or your postcards, Nonny,” says Smithy.

Their grandfather’s voice is so much like Dad’s that Jack’s heart clutches. “All the more reason to come. Everything was wrong, and there we were in another state, wringing our hands because our feelings were hurt. How stupid is that? If everything is wrong, the grandparents should at least wring their hands in the same house as the grandchildren.”

It has never occurred to Jack that the feelings of grandparents could be hurt. He could have made an effort. But he was all efforted out.

Madison makes it into her grandparents’ circling arms. “Cheryl told us you were too old and ill to help.”

“Nonsense. We’re middle-aged and slow to understand. It’s late in the day. But we got here.”

“I think you made very good time,” protests Smithy.

“On the plane, yes. But over the whole year, no. When we
came last summer, and you children were scattered, we should have rounded you up like lambs in the pasture and brought you home. But we didn’t. Somehow we couldn’t get to know you.” Their grandfather smiles. “We will this time.” He and Jack have reached each other. His grandfather grips Jack’s forearm and shoulder. For a moment Jack feels as young as Tris.

He pulls himself together. “There are problems,” he tells his grandfather. “The first is television. Cheryl sold Tris to TV. She’s got a producer to do a docudrama portraying Tris as a monster. It’s scheduled. We don’t know how to stop it. The second thing is that after all this time I looked in Dad’s cell phone. You know how he always took pictures. What we didn’t know is that Tris took pictures too. Tris took the very last pictures. It’s proof that—” Jack cannot quite say out loud to Dad’s father how Dad actually died.

“We haven’t seen those pictures,” says his grandfather, “but we’ve been on the phone with Mr. Wade since we picked up our rental car at the airport, so we’ve heard all about them. You sent them to him, remember. It took him a while to figure out the significance. It wasn’t until he studied the date and the hour that he understood. He’s at the police department as we speak.”

Jack’s heart stops. The police? Everything he dreaded is going to happen? More attention on Tris? More publicity?

“Trust us,” says Poppy gently. “We’ll handle it. Tris will be all right.”

Jack is seized by a curious joy. It isn’t happiness. Jack is not happy. It’s deeper and more extraordinary. All this time, through all this suffering, all he had to do was call his grandparents.

I’m the kid again, thinks Jack. The grown-ups decide. I don’t have to shoulder it anymore. People Dad and Mom loved will decide. Even if it goes in a direction I don’t want, I get to be fifteen.

Jack feels weirdly lightweight, as if he’s entered a different wrestling category.

And he has.

Kids play sports. He can be on a team. Of course, he’s grown so much. His arms stick out farther than the last time he competed in anything, his legs are longer, he’s out of practice, he’ll be useless—but these are just things to work on.

“Your dad would be so proud of you, Jack,” says his grandfather.

“I don’t know if he would. I don’t know if I handled things very well.”

“You never let go of your brother’s hand. Now, where’s Tris? Nonny and I want to reassure ourselves that all is well.”

They jump at a sudden rumbling metallic sound.

“It’s the garage door,” says Smithy. “Cheryl is leaving, just the way we planned.”

Poppy shakes his head. “She’s not going anywhere. I parked the rental car up against the garage door.”

*   *   *

Tris’s grandmother bends tenderly over the sleeping child in Diana’s arms and tucks the towel back from his chin.

Diana tries to explain. “There wasn’t time to get him into pajamas.”

“This is perfect,” says Nonny. “And so are you, dear. Let’s put him down in the crib. We don’t have to keep guard.”

“Cheryl might—”

“Cheryl won’t be doing anything. The children’s grandfather will see to that. And you were so wise to download that paperwork to Mr. Wade. He could tell in a minute that Cheryl is fiddling with the accounts. He’ll show that paperwork to the local police along with the cell-phone photographs.”

“Jack doesn’t want the police,” says Diana anxiously.

“What Jack wants is to protect Tris. And now we’re here, and we’ll protect him. Something we singularly failed to do before. Let’s go downstairs.”

*   *   *

Through the open front door walks Reverend Phillips. He’s a big man with a big voice, and he more than fills the space Cheryl left. He looks around. “Hey, Maddy,” he says cheerfully.

“Maddy” sounds good coming from him. Maybe she can be Maddy again, be the nice reliable laughing person that girl Maddy was once.

“I got worried when you hung up on me,” says Reverend Phillips. “What’s going on?”

Madison tells him everything. The minister is more shocked than anybody. “I believed her. I believed everything she said.”

“We all did. You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff we believed. But the police are on their way. Mr. Wade is talking to them.”

And then, incredibly, Cheryl is back, offering cheese and
crackers on a tray. She can’t leave, so she’s going to tough it out. “How nice of you to drop in,” she tells the minister.

“Mrs. Rand, under the circumstances, I do not want you around the children,” says Reverend Phillips. “You and I—”

Cheryl falls back on tears. She points to her bruised mouth. “Those children ganged up on me. They’re liars. I tried so hard to bring goodness into their lives and look at the thanks I get. They twist an accident into something ugly.”

“What was accidental,” asks the minister, “about blaming Tris?”

And then Mrs. Murray is bounding up the front steps, and in the front door, holding out the tiny terrifying film of Cheryl attacking Diana. She’s much thinner and smaller than Cheryl but the force of her wrath flattens Cheryl against a wall. “What is this?” she demands at the top of her lungs.

Cheryl is cornered: Mrs. Murray, Reverend Phillips and Poppy. Jack takes advantage. “Call Angus Nicolson,” he orders Cheryl. “Cancel your arrangement.”

“Oh, I can’t do that. They’re planning to film on Monday.”

Poppy uses a voice Jack has never heard before. “Call,” he says to Cheryl. “Now.”

Cheryl dwindles. She seems to lose weight and color and purpose all at the same time. She takes out a cell phone, and stares at it, puzzled, forgetting that it is Diana’s. She knows Angus’s number by heart and slowly taps it in. She tries to keep her options open, but Angus is a professional. He cuts his losses. “Okay,” he says. “That’s that.” He disconnects and all Cheryl Rand has to show for her efforts is a dial tone.

“I’ll just go upstairs,” begins Cheryl.

Tris is upstairs. Jack steps forward, his fears and fury back again.

The minister gets hold of Cheryl first. “Mrs. Rand, you and I are going to wait outside for the police.”

“This is my house! I’m not giving it up. You can’t make me.”

“It is not your house. We’ll wait outside.”

“It’s raining!”

“Then we’ll get wet.” Reverend Phillips shoulders Cheryl into the cold.

*   *   *

How strange it will be, thinks Madison Fountain, to finish senior year in yet another school.

It’s not what anybody wants. But Madison has figured out the order of things. First you want your family safe. Second you want your family.

She opens her cell phone and pulls up her favorite photograph of her mother. She hasn’t looked at it in a long, long time. But there her mother is, waiting for her.

Jack did his best, Madison tells her mother. I let you down. But I’m on the right track now. And Tris is fine. Isn’t that amazing? Tris is fine.

You’d love Tris, Mom.

You’d be glad he’s alive.

*   *   *

Smithy realizes that the house no longer matters. It isn’t Mom and Dad’s anymore. It’s okay to leave.

Home won’t come to us, she thinks. We have to go home. Nonny and Poppy’s.

She’s grateful for a semester and a half of boarding school. She has learned that there are good friends everywhere, waiting for you to appear. Distant as Missouri sounds, it will be the same: full of kids waiting to be friends. And Smithy will have her sister and her brothers, and the grandparents who love her no matter what.

Cheryl was treasure hunting, looking in a film, in fame, in a bank account. But treasure is where your heart is, and that is your family, and Elizabeth Smith Fountain is a lucky girl.

She has a family.

*   *   *

Tris sleeps on.

He doesn’t know about the troubles surrounding him.

He doesn’t care where he lives. He just wants a kiss in the morning, and a big breakfast, and time to play outdoors.

But one day he will know that he is blessed by two big sisters and one big brother. He is loved.